Recruiter marred lives, mom and daughter say

Published 2:50 pm, Thursday, June 13, 2013

The punishment phase in an Air Force recruiter's sexual misconduct trial opened Thursday with witnesses telling a military jury how his efforts to strike up liaisons changed their lives.

A mother and her daughter took the stand to testify against Tech. Sgt. Jaime Rodriguez.

“I can't explain how this changed everything,” said the mother, who is not being identified to protect the victim.

As she and a promenade of other witnesses talked through the morning, Rodriguez, who was found guilty late Wednesday of a host of charges that could land him in prison the rest of his life, avoided eye contact.

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A jury of eight male officers quietly listened as the mother recounted stumbling over texts sent by Rodriguez and graphic photos of himself on her daughter's cell phone.

The discovery was made on a Sunday night, Nov. 13, 2011, a critical moment in the timeline of a case that is among the worst in years for the San Antonio-based Air Force Recruiting Service.

Commanders intervened after that discovery and Rodriguez, who worked in the Lake Jackson recruiting office, was verbally warned on Nov. 15 not to have any further contact with the woman, who was 17 when he first approached her.

Rodriguez ignored the order. The next day, Master Sgt. Jonathan Tran was telling the girl's parents that he had issued the no-contact order the night before when a cell phone snapped on.

“And as soon as I said that, it seemed ironic that the phone lit up,” he testified.

Things unraveled quickly that week for Rodriguez, prompting him to reach out to a Marine recruiter he had worked with on occasion but didn't know well.

“'Hey, man, can you help me with something?'” Sgt. Richard Lecompte recalled a distraught Rodriguez saying.

The next day, Lecompte said Rodriguez approached him with a scheme. Lecompte would pose as the girl, identified as Victim 15, using another email account and explain that the incident was “a big misunderstanding.”

If Rodriguez had hoped to throw Tran off the trail by convincing the woman's parents not to press the matter, it backfired. Lacompte reported the incident.

Prior to the verdict, Rodriguez had pleaded guilty to six charges and 22 specifications of wrongdoing that carry 52 years in prison, including sending the false email and trying to get Lecompte to lie.

His pursuit of more than a dozen women who thought about joining the Air Force had profound repercussions that reverberate today.

Victim 15 entered the courtroom wearing a Navy uniform.

Once set on joining the Air Force, she soured on the idea and is today a communications technician assigned to an aircraft carrier.

“I definitely don't trust anyone,” she said.

There are texts that stick in her mind, like one from Rodriguez that detailed how he would have sex with her in a back office - the same room where he sought to seduce two women, sending one of them scurrying out in horror after he exposed himself.

“It made me feel wrong, like I was being degraded,” Victim 15 said. “I didn't have any self-worth at all.”